Posted
by
Soulskillon Friday November 20, 2009 @01:01AM
from the say-goodnight-folks dept.

lbalbalba writes "Electronic Arts is shutting down its Westwood-based game developer Pandemic Studios just two years after acquiring it, putting nearly 200 people out of work. 'The struggling video game publisher informed employees Tuesday morning that it was closing the studio as part of a recently announced plan to eliminate 1,500 jobs, or 16% of its global workforce. Pandemic has about 220 employees, but an EA spokesman said that a core team, estimated by two people close to the studio to be about 25, will be integrated into the publisher's other Los Angeles studio, in Playa Vista.' An ex-developer for Pandemic attributed the studio's struggles to poor decisions from the management."

javajeff writes: I decided to buy an extra 2 GB for my Windows Vista Ultimate. I installed the two new sticks, turned on the computer, and found that Windows only sees 3326MB. Apparently, 32 bit Windows will not see anything over 3.XGB due to memory mapping. Here is a Knowledge Base article from Microsoft:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605 on the subject. My bios shows all the sticks installed, and I moved them around to make sure they were all working properly in a 2GB situation. I also ran Ubuntu off of the 7.04 CD to try, and it also did not detect all of the memory. I have an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6300 and an Intel Desktop Board DG965WH. My question to the Slashdot community: Is there any way to use 4GB without installing the 64 bit Vista Ultimate?

Quintessant writes: "http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?i d=163207
CVG announces today that their sources have confirmed a Starcraft MMO. Now, this is unconfirmed by Blizzard as of yet, but I think we all saw it coming. Now, keeping this in mind, what do I see as coming next? Turf battles in Korea and China, with geeks and gamers battling it out for the dominance of available bandwidth. The apocalypse? No friends, we call this a zurg rush."

An anonymous reader writes: A group of hackers has stolen a list of all 1.6 million usernames and passwords for registered users of file-sharing site The Pirate Bay.
Computer Sweden reports that the sensitive information was accessed by a group calling itself Angry Young Hackers (Arga Unga Hackare — AUH).
Source: http://www.thelocal.se/7280/20070511/

6Yankee writes: Some Slashdotters are proud to own a computer full of 'beaver', but how about a beaver full of computer? "Ms McMahon said of her Compubeaver: 'I started thinking about the most ridiculous thing to put a computer into and decided it had to be a beaver.'" (That must've made her eyes water.) These case mods are getting dammed silly.

Last month, Utah's governor signed a resolution urging Congress to pass a law that would set up "family" and "adult" channels on the internet as a way to keep kids from seeing boobies. The resolution was based on the work of a group called CP80, which advocates mandating porn be put on its own port, and is headed by the chairman of everybody's favorite tech company, the SCO Group, Ralph Yarro. Now, Yarro's told a Utah legislative committee that open WiFi networks should be banned, and all WiFi networks should have filtering software to keep out porn, or be password-protected, so that if any porn makes its way onto a minor's computer, the network provider can be fined. That seems little odd, like fining the state's transportation department for building roads that people might drive on to go buy porn somewhere. But the suggestions didn't stop there: a BYU law professor says the state should circumvent the constitution not by forcing ISPs to block porn, but rather by giving tax incentives to those that do. One state senator says that the key is "a statewide education program so citizens can learn about the real problem with the uncontrolled porn in our society, mainly coming through the Internet." We'd imagine that advertising the availability of porn on the internet would run counter to these people's goals, but apparently not. Link to Original Source

Serge Smirnoff writes: "Audio format chosen by Apple/EMI for distribution of DRM-free higher quality music in iTunes Store was added to SoundExpert testing service. Though new audio metrics used by SoundExpert is still experimental it's the only testing methodology today capable of measuring perceptual audio quality margin. After some time (depending on volunteer testers' activity) this format can be compared to others like mp3, wma etc. at different bitrates. Now there are 93 codecs/bitrates in the system.

paxmaniac writes: Reuters reports that Steve Jobs is urging the 'big four' record companies to drop DRM. According to Jobs:'If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies'

All well and good, but isn't this a little hypocritical given that iTunes sells DRM encumbered songs that are available at other stores (e.g eMusic) without DRM?

kukyfrope writes: MTV News recently interviewed Justin Davis, editor-in-chief of popular mobile-gaming site Modojo, shedding some light on the highly neglected cell-phone gaming market amidst the hype of current-gen HD gaming consoles. The self-proclaimed "mobile gaming ambassador to the hard-core gaming community," he may just convince you to give a few cell phone games a try.